R (Wheeler)

v

Office of the Prime Minister and
Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs

DIRECTION

I refer to the undated letter emailed by the Treasury Solicitors to my clerk yesterday afternoon, indicating that the Government “is now proceeding to ratify the Treaty of Lisbon”.

The court is very surprised that the Government apparently proposes to ratify while the claimant’s challenge to the decision not to hold a referendum on ratification is before the court. The court expects judgment to be handed down next week. The defendants are invited to stay their hand voluntarily until judgment.

If, in the absence of any satisfactory assurance to that effect, the claimant decides to seek injunctive relief, I direct that the application be placed before me personally. I will make myself available today (save for this evening) and over the weekend should it be necessary, even though the hearing of any application may delay completion of the judgment: relevant contact details can be obtained from my clerk. I hope that it will not be necessary.

Copies of this direction should be sent to the parties and to the Administrative Court Office.

Lord Justice Richards
20 June 2008

Judgment in my case is likely to be given next week. As soon as it is given the result will be posted here.

Royal Assent to the bill does not constitute ratification. A further step is required i.e. the deposit of the ‘instruments of ratification’ with the Italian government. It would be quite wrong for our government to do that before my case, and any appeal have been decided.*

One more point: solicitors for the Prime Minister refused, on technical legal grounds, to produce documents which would, I feel sure, show that the only reason he is refusing a referendum is that he believes that he would lose it.*

Brown offers EU treaty assurances
EU treaty: Judge tells Gordon Brown to delay ratification

Small print at the end: Slovenia’s Constitutional Court has been pondering over the issue of holding a referendum since March - seems no one is in a particular hurry during the Slovenian presidency. Germany and Czech in similar legal position.